earthquake change in Willow Creek weekend services
June 8th, 2008
Incredible. Christianity Today recently reported that the weekend services of Willow Creek Community Church, famous for it’s sleek and professional performances that reaches out to seekers are now targeting mature believers because the church have lost members who were dissatisfied with their own personal growth and progress. Now this is change of a 7 richter scale if you understand the uniqueness of the church and the reason for its fame is its seeker sensitive weekend services. They have been aware of this need and problem for close to a decade and have tried to meet it by bringing in a solid biblical preacher for its Wednesday’s believers’ service. Looks like it wasn’t enough, and now a more drastic step is being taken. It will be interesting to see if this will really help stave off more members leaving the church. I think it will definitely take more than using marketing ideas of programming towards a changed targeted audience - from “seekers” to mature believers. Time will tell. As one interested in church life, I’ll be keeping tabs. Here is an excerpt from the article:
After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.
The change comes on the heels of an ongoing four-year research effort first made public late last summer in Reveal: Where Are You?, a book coauthored by executive pastor Greg Hawkins. Hawkins said during an annual student ministries conference in April that Willow Creek would also replace its midweek services with classes on theology and the Bible.
Whether more changes are in store for the suburban Chicago megachurch isn’t clear. Hawkins declined CT’s interview request, and senior pastor Bill Hybels was unavailable for comment.
Since 1975, Willow Creek has avoided conventional church approaches, using its Sunday services to reach the unchurched through polished music, multimedia, and sermons referencing popular culture and other familiar themes. The church’s leadership believed the approach would attract people searching for answers, bring them into a relationship with Christ, and then capitalize on their contagious fervor to evangelize others.
But the analysis in Reveal, which surveyed congregants at Willow Creek and six other churches, suggested that evangelistic impact was greater from those who self-reported as “close to Christ” or “Christ-centered” than from new church attendees. In addition, a quarter of the “close to Christ” and “Christcentered” crowd described themselves as spiritually “stalled” or “dissatisfied” with the role of the church in their spiritual growth. Even more alarming to Willow Creek: About a quarter of the “stalled” segment and 63 percent of the “dissatisfied” segment contemplated leaving the church.
As Willow Creek expanded its research into churches of varying geographic locations, sizes, and ethnic and denominational backgrounds, the church said the same general pattern emerged, an indication that the problem extends beyond Willow Creek.
What are your comments? Are Singapore churches facing the same challenge of dissatisfied mature believers?
Entry Filed under: Megachurches
Sorry guys, disregard this post as the info from the Christianity Today is wrong. I just received this from a Judson Poling who wrote:
“Noticed your blog about Willow Creek. Thought you’d want to see this rebuttal to the CT Blog about Willow Creek’s supposed change in direction. Not true, from Bill Hybels himself (instead of quoting the dubious sources in the CT article). Go HERE.
Another reason to like blogging: readers help to ensure some accuracy.
Thanks Judson.